On January 17th and 18th, 2012 the Everglades Foundation will be hosting a first of its kind event in Tallahassee, Florida. The Everglades Water Supply Summit will be filled with informative, thought-provoking events designed to build momentum towards the restoration of a national treasure and to secure Florida's water supply.

In 2011, Florida witnessed one of the worst droughts of its history. It was the third drought in the past ten years. This lack of rain sparked wildfires across the state and set large-scale destructive algal blooms in motion in the Caloosahatchee river. West Palm Beach and other municipalities came within days of running out of water.

The drought highlighted the issues that Florida should have been focusing on from the beginning: storing rainwater, cleaning it and supplying it to the millions of Floridians who need it.

The Everglades ecosystem is a crucial link between water storage and water supply for almost 7 million Floridians. And at less than half its original size, one out of every three Floridians relies on the Everglades as the source of their fresh drinking water.

For over a hundred years, we have built canals and levees to re-direct the natural southerly flow of freshwater from the headwaters of the Everglades in the Kissimmee river basin towards urban areas and coastal cities, disrupting the ecosystem's delicate natural balance.

Meanwhile, 1.7 billion gallons of freshwater are dumped into saltwater estuaries every day.